Guide on Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 – Right to free elections violations of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (Davydov and Others v. Russia, 2017, §§ 288 and 335). In that case, none of the bodies involved – electoral commission, public prosecutor, courts – had carried out a proper examination of the reasons underlying the applicants’ complaints. 115. Referring in particular to the Venice Commission’s Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, the Court has had occasion to find that national authorities had given excessively formalistic reasons to avoid examining the substance of electoral complaints. The fact that there was a wide difference in votes between candidates did not matter when it came to examining, independently, the extent of the irregularities, before determining their effects on the overall result of the election (Namat Aliyev v. Azerbaijan, 2010). European Court of Human Rights 30/35 Last update: 30.04.2021